


your stalk has caught root

by duchamp



Category: DCU, Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11116740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchamp/pseuds/duchamp
Summary: He apologizes, of course he does, that self-deprecating smile resting on his face, says he’s trying to adjust as best he can. “I’ll figure this out,” he assures. “Just bear with me.”“Always,” Diana promises.





	your stalk has caught root

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… our wars, their remains  
scavenged on the seafloor and in its caves, belongings now  
a flotsam washed to the rocks.

CAROLYN FORCHÉ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sewn into the hem of memory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i.

“Wake up, Diana,” he tells her. He’s wedged into a military aircraft, first class, seated in the cockpit. Starched uniform of his true allegiance worn, signs of the spy ironed away. Only the Good Ol’ Boy remaining, the soldier. The brave heart in the trenches.

She’s watching him from a distance. As if he’s unreachable. As if he’s a photograph come to a mimicry of living movement. “No,” she says. “If I wake up, you’ll be gone.”

“Sweetheart,” he responds, mournful, without any bite, “that’s the point.”

I can no longer be at your side.

Do not tether yourself to a dead man.

(Sometimes the dream ends here, other times it doesn’t. Sometimes it takes on different variations, different forms.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

ii.

Ink print folded out across the breakfast table, current events greeting her. (“The vote,” Etta had said, when she brought both her and Diana tea with lemon and scones for their morning meal, “it’s so close. Just one more inch, one more _inch_ , and we’ll have those barriers bent.”)

Sticky icing and crumbs coat her fingers as she finishes eating, taking a sip of lukewarm earl grey after the last bite.

She looks across from her. Can almost see Steve smiling at her if she concentrates hard enough. In her mind’s eye he’s sleepy, a little out of sorts; peace and quiet are foreign concepts to him. He apologizes, of course he does, that self-deprecating smile resting on his face, says he’s trying to adjust as best he can. “I’ll figure this out,” he assures. “Just bear with me.”

“Always,” Diana promises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

iii.

He was so hesitant during the night they spent together. Little more than a child in moments, unsure and questioning and flushing red. “You’re—” He bit his tongue, seemed to want to swallow the words, seemed embarrassed, but he carried on. (He told her he wouldn’t lie, before. He wouldn’t lie to her.) “I don’t know if I’m… I don’t want to disappoint you.”

And Diana couldn’t make sense of it. Couldn’t make sense of the way he was looking at her, then. Like no one ever had before or ever would again. “It’s warm here,” she said, in the clasp of his arms, brushing her nose against his. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

A breath. So ragged an exhale in response that Steve’s chest shook with it. Placing kisses on her cheeks, she thought she heard him say, “For me, too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

iv.

She fantasizes about going back to that time, that place. Tailoring her words and actions with the benefit of hindsight. (Now that Steve’s been scattered to the stars, his limbs and his hair and his eyes and his resilience returned to the dust of the galaxy, an infinite expanse she cannot reach. Even with all her power, she cannot stretch her arms that wide.)

You have me, she’d tell him. Every line, every curve, every jagged edge that makes my physical self what it is. But that’s not all. You also have my heart, and my mind; you kindle my will to flame when it’s extinguished. You help me understand what it means to _try_. To try and not give up.

I see so many facets of myself reflected back when I look at you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

v.

He exits the cockpit, climbs down the extended ladder leading to the ground. There are cheers sounding from far away, distant and joyful cries, but no other onlookers are in sight. It’s just him and her. It’s just him and her and he’s come back a decorated hero.

She runs to him across a white expanse, fine particles kicking up about her boots, salt flats. She calls out his name and he turns, recognition dawning and happiness splitting his features in half, lips curling up and up and up to his very ears.

Reaching him, she says, “You made it.”

“I made it,” he confirms, cupping her face and nudging his forehead against her own.

This is where Diana wakes up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

vi.

Right after he—no, start again, don’t use the word, it’s wholly wrong—after he traveled that divide, after he left and she was banked on English shores, unable to go back home, unable to traverse the secrets of her childhood paradise’s concealment, she received a slip from Etta. Numbers were scrawled on it. Words, too. “It’s a street address,” Etta explained. “His apartment.”

“ _Apartment_?” Diana questioned.

“Where he lived,” Etta clarified.

She went. Passing leashed dogs in narrow hallways and small children pedaling on three-wheeled devices. Tricycles—Diana later learned from Etta that’s what they were called. 

The place was inconspicuous. Tidy, spare. There was a twin bed with linen sheets and a woolen coverlet, made, the ends tucked in very tight. Military corners—Etta defined this too when Diana mentioned them, articulated the meaning of so many other affects. Like the bar of soap that was perched on the tub in the bathroom, smelling of cottonseed. Like the straight razor and shaving kit. Like the capped tin of pomade Steve had used to slick back his hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

vii.

His personal things are packed away in a storage unit, now.

Three small cardboard boxes.

Nothing else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

viii.

The year is 1939.

Another ‘war to end all wars’ begins.

Diana tries to remind herself what she believes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ix.

“So many buckles,” he’d murmured, trying to undo the fastenings of her armor. Her hair was tangled up by his lips as he spoke; he’d been placing short-tempo kisses in so many spots—and Diana tried to trace them, map where he went. But she was overwhelmed, confronted with a type of intimacy she’d never experienced on Themyscira. She’d had elated and heartened trysts but nothing like this. She’d never had someone brush their mouth against her eyebrows, the tip of her nose, her chin, the juncture where her hair tucked behind her ear.

“I can help,” she offered.

“No, I—” Steve pulled back slightly. “I mean, if you want, but I’d like to do this myself. If you don’t mind.”

“Alright,” Diana allowed. She wondered if this was something he took pride in. If he was out to learn her like he was a student and she the lesson. And maybe that was true, in part, but as the minutes went on, as the confines of her dress were loosened one by one, she recognized a sadness in his expression, carried along with the fondness in his eyes. He thought this was the first and last time he’d ever get to do this.

And it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, there are many, many things to love about this film and Diana and Steve’s relationship in particular but I just… love how in awe Steve is of Diana. You have this soldier who’s very confident in who he is and his worldview, sure of himself; but when he’s around her he just gets a little bit… unsure. Hesitant. (That scene where he’s standing at her door, for example. Doubting whether he should stay, if she wants him, and/or if he’s truly worthy at all of her time.) Because he’s so bowled over by who she is and what she can do. It’s the most endearing thing, honestly.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://highsmith.tumblr.com/).


End file.
